The sentiment (or point, I guess) of the thread is well-taken. Some of it I can roll with. Other parts? Not so much. Overall, I think it's tough to build a franchise in baseball because for every pick that is sure fire, there is one that we all THOUGHT was sure fire, and he was a bust. It's taken some prominent franchises years to get back to where they were in yesteryear.
It's easier to build a good baseball team because it's an individual sport, you don't need chemistry like the NBA.
Chemistry helps. The hard part about baseball is that there are so many more spots to fill, and talent is harder to evaluate. NBA's biggest problem right now is that stars are drawn more to certain cities and there aren't enough superstars to go around. Endorsement dollars mean more to the NBA than MLB or NFL.
Definitely takes teamwork. Every play involves at least 2 teammates. Familiarity with each other isn't as important in general, but for a catcher & pitcher, or SS & 2B, time together is just as valuable as it is in the NBA. Neither compares to the NFL which requires knowledge of extensive playbooks, and timing & positioning are always important.
Out of curiosity, is there any evidence that a pitcher's ERA goes down over time as they work more with a catcher? I think this would be a pretty fascinating study to see how the relationship between the two affects performance over time.
I don't know. I guess like "protection" in the lineup, it could be something that the statistics really show isn't as important as baseball people actually believe.
Hit-and-run, 6-3 putouts, the catcher watching mechanics or directing the field on an infield fly, guys watching for each other when to slide at home, the list is endless. Oh, and I can't recall ever playing one-on-one baseball.
Ok seriously, half the time a dude is standing in the outfield by himself for hours catching fly balls. There is absolutely no chemistry there! Does it take 2 people to bat... No it doesn't. You don't even need chemistry between a catcher and pitcher, you just do your individual job, there's no passing or plays run like a fastbreak or pick and roll sequence in the NBA.
Because every team in the NBA doesn't run the pick and roll? You're right. Outfielders never communicate with each other. They never throw the ball to infielders. Pitchers and catchers don't have to be on the same page. Runners and hitters never communicate with each other. Hitters never discuss with other hitters about an at bat. Never happens.
There's no comparison between chemistry in basketball and baseball. If you trade for Clyde Drexler mid-season, it's going to take time to figure out how to run your offense to best utilize him. If you go sign Lebron James and Chris Bosh, you're going to redesign your whole offensive and defense philosophy. If you trade for Carlos Beltran or Randy Johnson mid-season, you can just plug and play. Will it take a little while for them to get adjusted? Possibly. But the team doesn't change anything they do, and the players don't change anything they do. Chemistry can enhance a baseball team a little bit, but chemistry is fundamentally necessary for a basketball team to compete at any decent level. If you throw together 25 players (at the correct positions) from around the league onto an MLB team, they will be a pretty a functional team on Day #1 that functions about at the level of the sum of their parts. If you take 5 random players from the NBA at the correct positions, they will perform nowhere near the sum of their parts on day #1.
Entirely disagree. How long did it take Pau Gasol get acclimated to the Lakers? 5 minutes? The Red Sox know just how bad it can go when your team is completely devoid of chemistry. Neither is the NFL.
It depends on what your role is on the team. A PG is going to probably take longer than a Shaq. A QB in the NFL is going to take longer than a running back. The Red Sox didn't lose because of a lack of chemistry. They blamed a lack of chemistry after the fact because it's an easy thing to do for losing teams. If they had won 1 more game last year or if TB doesn't hit a HR in the bottom of a 9th in a game on the last day, no one is talking about any chemistry problems in their clubhouse - a clubhouse that won the WS just a few years earlier with much of the same people. This year, the Red Sox just lost because most of their lineup was injured, and the few that weren't sucked. Bad chemistry is not going to make Adrian Gonzales unable to hit the ball.
